Four men face Berlin trial for giant gold coin heist

                                                                       dpa/AFP    

Police have found no trace of the
100-kilogramme (220-pound) Canadian coin since the elaborate late-night
heist in March 2017 from the German capital’s Bode Museum, located close
to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s apartment.

Authorities presume the nearly pure-gold
treasure, with a face value of one million Canadian dollars, “was either
cut into small pieces or taken abroad”, said Berlin police at the time.

The three chief suspects in the theft
arrested in July 2017 are brothers Ahmed R., 20, and Wayci R., 23, and
their cousin Wissam R., 21.

If found guilty of theft, they would face jail terms of up to 10 years.

Also in the dock in the juvenile trial is a
former museum security guard, 20-year-old Dennis W., who allegedly acted
as the inside man, giving the others crucial information for the
break-in.

The three alleged thieves, who are registered as unemployed, are not in custody.

Berlin’s B.Z. daily and other German media
reported they are members of the Remmo extended family with roots in
Lebanon, several of whose members have been linked to organised crime.

The city’s police last year targeted
the Remmo clan with the seizure of 77 properties worth a total of 9.3
million euros, charging that they were purchased with the proceeds of
various crimes, including a bank robbery.

‘History forged in metal’

The “Big Maple Leaf”, minted in 2007 with a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, is considered the world’s second-largest gold coin.

It
was on loan from an unidentified collector to the Bode Museum, which
bills its large exhibition of coins and medals as a “chronicle of human
history forged in metal”.

Security camera footage from the night shows
three young men in dark hoodies make their way to the museum, following
earlier trips they had made to scope out the target.

They broke in through a window and used a
rope, wooden beam and a wheelbarrow to lift the coin — which has a
diameter of 53 centimetres (21 inches) — onto adjacent elevated urban
railway tracks.

The coin was probably damaged when the thieves
dropped it twice — once on the tracks that pass the museum and cross
the Spree river, and again in Monbijou park on the opposite river bank,
from where they took it away in a car.

According to the indictment, at a later stage, “the accused allegedly split the gold coin and sold the pieces”.

                                                              

/AFP